Employee receives notice from HR for continuing to drive older car

Employee receives notice from HR for continuing to drive older car. Photo / 123rf

An eye-raising email from a member of HR in an anonymous company has caused a stir with more than 5800 people weighing in on whether it was inappropriate to send.

In the email, which was posted to social media, an employee is told that the company has a policy of checking an employee's credit to ensure "the employee can be trusted to make sound financial decisions".

Allegedly written by a vice-president of human resource management, the email goes on to detail how the employee's car was a matter of concern for the business.

"Your annual salary is known to us and a newer and more appropriate looking vehicle should be within your financial reach," it said.

The redditor that posted it said the car was a 2005 Camry that wasn't wrecked but was just old and faded, news.com.au reported.

The HR manager still took offence to it, stating the company was concerned the employee may be susceptible to fraud for having a bad car and "to be even more frank, it just looks bad".

The alleged email that has caused offence. Photo / Supplied

Commenters were on the side of the employee, with many offering different ways to respond to the HR manager.

"Here's how to respond: I'm terribly sorry. I hadn't realised that my personal vehicle was of concern to the company. Of course I'll be happy to make an upgrade, and it's very generous of you to offer. Let me know if you'd prefer for me to purchase it personally and then file for reimbursement, or to purchase it with a company card," said one Reddit user.

Another user said they were the vice-president of finance at their company and driving a rusted 2007 Accord.

Littered in the thousands of comments were people telling their own stories of rich people who were frugal on items like cars.

There was a story of a Taiwanese CEO who drove a '97 Honda until it was stolen and a father who made $US160,000 a year but drove a beat-up car until it stopped working.

The unanimous theme on the thread was that having an old car probably didn't actually mean the employee was bad with money.

"Having worked in banking, I have had many clients whose appearances were deceiving. They would look as if they were mismatching clothing from the thrift store but when I'd open their account information, they had millions. This post is really bothersome," said one user.

"I was incensed just reading this. I am one of those people that for many years drove an older, high mileage car when I could have afforded a much more expensive vehicle if I would have wanted to. This is absolutely no-one's business at work, people do not belong to their company, they are merely employees, they should not have their entire lives controlled for them in this manner," said another.